


Light and Dark

by batyalewbel



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 07:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19351927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyalewbel/pseuds/batyalewbel
Summary: “Aziraphale where the heaven are you, you idiot?” he calls out to the flames that lick at his heels, playful and feline.But Aziraphale isn’t here.---“Crowley? It’s me, I know where we have to…”The words trail off into cold, still silence.There’s a puddle in the doorway. An overturned red bucket and a primordial residue.





	Light and Dark

**Author's Note:**

> The entire concept for this comes from [ this post](https://thegoodomensdumpster.tumblr.com/post/185778242362/okay-but-imagine-if-aziraphale-dodged-the-portal)
> 
> I did not spell check this FYI

Aziraphale escaped the ridiculous Shadwell and miracled to Crowley’s. Only he didn’t notice the candle that had toppled. He was too distracted by his latest revelation to smell the smoke.

Because it turned out, heaven thought it was right to let millions of people die for a stupid war and that didn’t just make him sad, and it didn’t just make him desperate…

It made the angel angry.

Crowley had told him before, _“we’re on our side,”_ and Aziraphale didn’t realize until he spoke to Metatron that the demon was right.

And with that he pops a few miles down the road in the blink of an eye as smoke begins to pour out of the bookshop windows.

\---

Crowley strides into the bookshop, long legged and furious.

 _“Aziraphale where the heaven are you, you idiot?”_ he calls out to the flames that lick at his heels, playful and feline. Fire always likes to tease and demons love a little fire, normally he might roll in it like a dog but this is Aziraphale’s bookshop and Aziraphale _isn’t here._

A window shatters from the force of a firemen’s hose it knocks him on his back.

And Aziraphale _isn’t here._

He isn’t _anywhere._

The realization sets in here among the heat and the smoke.

Somebody killed his best friend.

 _“Bastards....All of you!”_ he cries out to the god that he knows won’t listen to him and the angels that won’t help him and the demons who won’t save him. They all stood by and let Aziraphale, the best of all of them, die.

So there really is no hope left for any of them.

He gets into his car, white ash marring the black of his suit and puts on a new pair of tinted spectacles.

It seems he’ll have to face the end alone.

\---

Aziraphale doesn’t go to Crowley’s often, in spite of being invited multiple, the demon-ness of it makes him uneasy. All the cold, black, hard edges of it.

Privately, Aziraphale thinks this was more of a show, like the black clothes and the sunglasses. The demon likes to give off the appearance of evil, in spite of his own innate morality. He’ll insist to hell and back that he is a terrible being, but Aziraphale remembers when he snuck children onto Noah’s arc, or when he spent a year insisting what a terrible nanny he was to the child that wasn’t the Antichrist, when he was in fact the child’s favorite.

So Aziraphale arrives at Crowley’s with a pop and rings the bell.

But there’s no answer.

He tries again, still no answer.

Crowley had hung up with him in a hurry when he’d called earlier and only now does it occur to him that he might need to worry.

The angel miracles the lock open thinking crossly, _take that heaven_ , and he opens the door carefully. “Crowley?” he calls.

The silence is cold. Chilly in a way that seeps into his bones.

He walks down the hall.

“Crowley are you here?”

The flat is somewhat reptilian and labyrinthine in nature, but he knows the demon has a sort of office he spends his time in.

Finally he turns a corner and finds a familiar doorway.

“Crowley? It’s me, I know where we have to…”

The words trail off into cold, still silence.

There’s a puddle in the doorway. An overturned red bucket and a primordial residue.

His mouth forms the words silently, _‘Please god no,”_ as he kneels on the ground, touching a trembling finger to the puddle.

He’s getting his trousers dirty. He can feel them grow damp and he can’t bring himself to care as tears fill his eyes and he stares down into the puddle of what used to be his friend.

He gave Crowley holy water once. It took a lot of pressure from the demon but he gave it to him and didn’t ask why.

But something about the red bucket tossed aside, the disorganized papers lying on the floor and on his desk.

He thinks Crowley didn’t do this. He thinks somebody did this _to him._

His hand presses flat to the ground, deaf and numb to the gray and the muck as it forms a fist.

Crowley may have been a demon, but he was _good._ In many ways, he was the best of them, always asking the right questions without fear.

And somebody killed him.

He looks up to the heavens, _“How could you let this happen?”_ he cries out and as always there is no response.

 _“Then to hell with you!”_ he calls out. A shout that rapidly turns to a whimper as he gets to his feet, _“To hell with all of you.”_ All of his heavenly whites are now marred by graying holy water and demonic remains and for once he doesn’t care.

He goes to Saint James Park, blind and unsteady. 

Unthinking and terribly, terribly sad.

\---

Crowley had a bottle of something in the boot of his car, something he’d been saving for a rainy day that he thought the angel might like.

It is raining as he pulls up to Saint James Park with a squeal of tires and gets the bottle out of the car. With a wave of his hand the car locks and already somebody is honking at him for the shite parking but he doesn’t care. He yanks the cork out of the bottle with his teeth and proceeds to down half of it in one swallow the way he used to swallow mice whole.

By the time he reaches their bench its pouring and he’s drunk and crying and the bottle is almost empty. He miracles some more alcohol from somewhere into it and continues to drink as the rain continues to soak him to the bone.

He’s halfway through a third bottle and vaguely wondering if this body’s liver can fail when he sees him.

Or he’s drunk enough to hallucinate, which is a level he’s not ever managed before.

The angel is _here,_ toddling up the hill like somebody broke both his legs. His clothes are _filthy_ which is in and of itself a cause for alarm since Aziraphale can barely abide dust let alone physical dirt. And he’s getting soaked which is insane, Crowley’s never seen the angel touch a raindrop without an umbrella in his hand. Once he just miracled the rain around them because he said the rain was bad for his coat. 

Now the coat has streaks and splats of gray on it. The knees of his trousers are almost black and his hands seem smeared with something dark and sooty.

Crowley opens his mouth to call out, to see if he’s really _real,_ when Aziraphale looks up at him and stops in his tracks.

\---

Aziraphale doesn’t even notice the rain. He just walks to their bench, idly wondering if in all the chaos its still there. Maybe some bigfoot overturned it or a hail of fish broke it.

He’s thinking that if the bench is there then maybe he can sit and collect himself. Try to get himself in order.

He doesn’t notice that he’s crying or the rain mixing with tears on his cheeks.

He once read a medical volume that described the symptoms of ‘shock’ and he wonders if thats what this is.

It feels like a shock to the system. To the universe.

He can’t quite picture a universe without the demon in it.

And at the moment he thinks that, he looks up to the demon is _there._ Standing open mouthed beside their bench, red hair plastered to his forehead and a bottle of something in his hand.

“Crowley?” he asks and it comes out like a croak as he takes a step closer and the demon takes another step towards him with brows furrowed over his dark spectacles. 

The angel gulps and closes the gap between them while the demon stares down at him, the bottle dropping from his hand to spill its contents on the grass.

And Aziraphale doesn’t really think as he reaches up to remove the demon’s spectacles. Tears spring from him anew at the sight of those familiar golden eyes staring back at him.

“I saw the holy water,” he says, voice trembling like the flutter of a hummingbird’s wing.

“The bookshop was on fire,” Crowley replies, his own voice cracking like magma, “I thought you were dead.”

“I thought they had killed you,” the angel tells him. 

\---

Crowley stares down at Aziraphale. At his stupid, perfect angel, standing there sopping wet and crying in the rain.

It speaks to how serious it is, that the angel doesn’t seem to care that he’s soaked to the skin.

Crowley’s own lip quivers at the thought of Aziraphale in his flat, finding that puddle and thinking he was alone. 

The way Crowley thought he was alone.

“I told them all to go to hell,” Aziraphale says, his chin tilting up like he’s trying to put a brave face on it. “I told them to go to hell, because I thought they had killed you,” and his voice breaks apart by the end of his. The angel ducks his head and his shoulders shake and Crowley stands over him, helpless and stupid and drenched in this damned rain.

“Oh _hell,”_ he mutters and pulls the angel into a tight embrace.

He glares up at the rain until it has the sense to move around them and then he looks down at the angel in his arms.

“I know Angel, I know,” he murmurs and presses a kiss to Aziraphale's forehead and holds him tight.

He was ready to let the world burn for his angel, but now Aziraphale is alive and in his arms which means they have an apocalypse they’ll need to be averting soon.

But first, “Goodness Crowley, you’re soaking wet.”

He smiles into the angels hair.

“So are you.”

Aziraphale’s reply is small and muffled in Crowleys coat, “Shall I miracle us dry?”

“Oh let me do the honors,” Crowley says, his smile growing into a full, toothy grin.

Somebody watching from a distance might not understand how the two men hugging in the rain come walking out of it fresh and dry. But the sky is clearing and the sun is starting to peek through the clouds in warm beams of light.

The sky isn’t bright, but nor is it a stormy black. A light gray drift of cloud seems to coat the heavens as far as the eye can see.

Not light or dark, but something in between. Some blending of the two.

If the angel and the demon had been paying attention they might have taken it as an omen. As a wink of encouragement from God to keep going on their own particular path.

But instead the pair just hold hands all the way back to Crowley’s car.

As soon as the door shuts though, its back to business. They have an Apocalypse to stop.

Later, when there’s time to toast the world they will return to this new business of embraces and hand holding and light and dark mixing to make something new.

**Author's Note:**

> Once again I did write this for a friend who specifically wanted some protective Aziraphale, I hope this fit the bill.


End file.
